This week, Rupert Shortt is interviewed about his latest book, The Eclipse of Christianity: And why it matters (Comment, 13 September, Books, 20 September).

The wide-ranging book reports on the unsettling consequences of secularisation, but also offers a robust defence of the intellectual coherence of Christian belief and argues that Europe’s historic faith remains critical to the survival of a humane culture.

In a review of the book in the Church Times, John Saxbee writes: “It remains to be seen just how close to total any eclipse of Christianity might be, but eclipses are by their very nature transitory, and Shortt, notwithstanding his painfully honest analysis, provides a halo of hope sufficient to confound the doubters and re-energise the faithful.”

Rupert Shortt is a research associate at the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry at the University of Cambridge, and was an editor at The Times Literary Supplement from 2000 until 2020. His previous books include The Hardest Problem (Books, 16 September 2022), Outgrowing Dawkins: God for grown-ups (Podcast, 29 November 2019), Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good? (Podcast, 29 March 2019), and Rowan's Rule: The biography of the Archbishop (2014).

The Eclipse of Christianity is published by Hodder at £25 (Church Times Bookshop £20).

He will be speaking about the book at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, to be held in Winchester from 28 February to 2 March 2025. faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

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